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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27113050">Asunder</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/moodlighting/pseuds/moodlighting'>moodlighting</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Old Guard (Movie 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, First Kiss, M/M, Pre-Canon, Reunions, yusuf and nicolo get separated (and find each other again)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 17:07:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,038</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27113050</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/moodlighting/pseuds/moodlighting</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It is in that abiding conviction, in Nicolò’s soul-deep valor, that Yusuf finds himself heartened. They will walk down from this mountain together, as sure as they climbed its face at each other’s side.</p><p>With that knowledge, Yusuf allows his eyes to fall shut once more, tipping his body gently forward to rest his forehead against Nicolò’s, seeking to share the depth of his assurance with him.</p><p>He is not allowed the opportunity.</p><p>
  <i>Yusuf and Nicolò are separated. Destiny returns them to each other once more.</i>
</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>48</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>223</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Together</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Working title: [do not separate]<br/>Booker: You and Nicky always had each other.<br/>Me: haha...unless...?</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The coarse hemp sack, hot and damp from Yusuf’s panting breaths, is ripped from his head without warning, leaving Yusuf blind in the sudden daylight. When he stumbles, a pair of large, rough hands catch him by the shoulders and shove him unceremoniously down to the ground. Sharp, pointed stones bite into the skin of his knees.</p><p>Yusuf groans, slumping forward in utter exhaustion. He feels a second body as it is thrown down next to him—Nicolò, presumably, who collapses against Yusuf’s side. Were his hands not bound behind his back, Yusuf would reach out to him, to draw Nicolò near. Restrained as he is, Yusuf’s palms can only itch with stymied need.</p><p>They’d been seized in the earliest hours of the morning, before first light, when the stars had just begun to fade from the sky. Yusuf had quickly lost count of the hours as their captors marched them relentlessly up the mountainside, their pace brutal and without pause. Squinting one eye open now, Yusuf peers through the fog gathering at the craggy peak to find the sun already beginning its descent into the western horizon. It will be night soon.</p><p>Their captors have surrounded them, speaking to each other in the rapid mountain dialect neither Yusuf nor Nicolò has been able to parse. They seem to be arguing heatedly amongst themselves, largely ignoring their spent captives sprawled out on the ground. Most of the men do so from atop the shaggy ponies they ride—a stout, hardy breed of horse built to traverse the ragged mountains in a way Yusuf and Nicolò were decidedly not. In better circumstances, Yusuf would admire the beauty of their pale, spotted coats, their dark manes blowing wild in the cool mountain air.</p><p>Yusuf turns to Nicolò instead.</p><p>On his knees, sitting back against his heels, Nicolò has his face tilted toward the heavens as he attempts to catch his breath. He has not opened his eyes since the hemp sack was removed from his head. His lips are dry and cracked, much like Yusuf’s feel, both of them desperate for water after their endless march up the unforgiving slope of the mountain.</p><p>Yusuf does not expect any such mercy from their captors.</p><p>“Nicolò,” Yusuf rasps out, attempting to draw his gaze.</p><p>What he might say to Nicolò, to comfort him, to reassure, Yusuf does not know. Surely they have found themselves in circumstances worse than this before, though in the present moment, Yusuf cannot draw any examples to mind.</p><p>Next to him, Nicolò blinks open his eyes and turns to Yusuf, meeting his gaze.</p><p>For all that Nicolò holds himself out as a steady, reserved figure, his heart tempered and exacting, Yusuf has learned in their half century together what most fail to understand about Nicolò—that in his eyes, one can read his thoughts, the constancy of his passions, as clearly as if Nicolò were an open book held before a flame.</p><p>In his eyes now, Yusuf can see Nicolò’s fear—his concern for Yusuf, for their lives—unmoved in spite of the miraculous gift they share. He can see Nicolò’s hesitancies, his doubts, ever-present and intractable, and the trust he has in Yusuf in defiance of each of them. Above all else, it is Nicolò’s determination that Yusuf can see—his steel trap mind ready to snap its jaws shut around any solution that may come, every tooth sharp and unwilling to allow even the smallest hope to escape them now.</p><p>It is in that abiding conviction, in Nicolò’s soul-deep valor, that Yusuf finds himself heartened.</p><p>They will walk down from this mountain together, as sure as they climbed its face at each other’s side.</p><p>With that knowledge, Yusuf allows his eyes to fall shut once more, tipping his body gently forward to rest his forehead against Nicolò’s, seeking to share the depth of his assurance with him.</p><p>He is not allowed the opportunity. Instead, there is a startled grunt from his left, and Yusuf snaps his eyes open to see one of the larger men, now down from his mount, as he grasps Nicolò under each arm and begins to drag him bodily away from Yusuf.</p><p>“<em>No!</em>” Yusuf shouts, instinctively throwing himself forward to pull Nicolò back.</p><p>But Yusuf cannot reach for him with his hands bound behind his back. He overbalances and crashes to the ground, unable to break his fall. Sharp stones pierce his face where he lands.</p><p>Yusuf ignores the pain.</p><p>He struggles to heave himself upright once more; a heavy foot immediately stomps down onto his back, pinning Yusuf to the ground. He strains against the weight of it, unwilling to take his eyes off Nicolò, who has begun thrashing wildly in the other man’s grip, attempting to break his hold. The heels of his boots carve crude, violent lines in the dirt as he’s hauled back toward the rest of their captors.</p><p>Away from Yusuf.</p><p>That is when Nicolò begins to scream.</p><p>It’s a sound more frantic and anguished than any Yusuf has heard from him before, despite every pain and injury and indignity he has watched Nicolò suffer across the years.</p><p>Nicolò thrashes his arms and legs without prejudice, trying and failing to connect with anything, anyone around him. He gnashes his teeth like a caught animal, desperate and wild as he searches for a tender strip of flesh to sink his teeth into. He finds none.</p><p>And Yusuf is unable to do anything but bear witness, powerless where he struggles against the ground, no more than a worm. Tears gather in his eyes, begin to stream down his face as he watches Nicolò fight with a power and fury he so rarely sees. Yet he is as helpless and defenseless as either of them have ever been.</p><p>Yusuf does not know when he too begins to scream.</p><p>“Stop!” he hears himself begging, sobbing. “<em>Stop!</em> What are you doing? Where are you taking him?! Let him go! <em>Let him go! Let him go!</em>”</p><p>Their captors quickly lose patience with his shouts, with Nicolò’s unending howling. Between one word and the next, Yusuf is hauled up from the ground by the hair at the back of his head. A powerful fist crunches once, twice against his face. Blood smears his vision, and for a moment, Yusuf loses sight of Nicolò.</p><p>Distantly, the screams echoing across the mountaintop cease.</p><p>“Yusuf! <em>Yusuf!</em>” he can hear Nicolò shouting, his name breaking apart in Nicolò’s mouth.</p><p>Yusuf sways woozily, kept upright only by the hands gripping his shoulders. His head lolls to the side, his eyes rolling back into his head.</p><p>A ruse, one that is easily accepted. Smugly gratified with having finally shut him up, the man releases Yusuf’s shoulders from his grip, likely expecting him to plummet to the ground and into unconsciousness.</p><p>Yusuf does not give him the satisfaction. Without hesitation, he reverses his momentum, throwing back his head and striking the man with all the force he can muster, breaking his nose and cheek on impact. The man collapses instantly.</p><p>And Yusuf, for the moment, is free.</p><p>He has precious few seconds to evaluate the situation and make a decision. Yusuf’s eyes rake across their surroundings, calculating.</p><p>A few paces away, all of the men on foot are occupied with holding back Nicolò, who is still fighting to reach Yusuf with a vicious, single-minded intention. The remaining men on horseback have begun to dismount, though their attention is now divided between Nicolò and Yusuf, who has proven himself to be a credible threat, even while bound and bleeding.</p><p>Regardless, he and Nicolò are terribly outnumbered.</p><p>Yusuf turns his gaze to the surrounding landscape. Down the face of the mountain, the crumbling stone is broken up only by a sparse scattering of coniferous trees, each of them thinner and more skeletal than the next, offering no protection or cover.</p><p>There is nowhere for them to run. Though blinded by the sack over his head on their journey up the mountain, Yusuf had felt the uneven terrain they crossed. He knows there will be no clear path for them to follow; knows he and Nicolò do not possess the knowledge needed to outmaneuver these men in their own lands. Even if they were able to flee, they would certainly not be able to outpace the ponies, or the crossbows strapped to the men’s backs.</p><p>It is clear to Yusuf then that the single advantage available to him, in this moment, is his immortality.</p><p>He cannot fight his way out. He cannot escape with his life. But he can outlast whatever these men may choose to do to him.</p><p>He will live, and he will find Nicolò.</p><p>It is decided, then.</p><p>Returning to the present, Yusuf finds their captors rapidly closing in on each side of them. Yusuf ignores them, knowing exactly where to find Nicolò’s gaze instead.</p><p>On his knees, seemingly rooted to the spot, no longer struggling, Nicolò is staring back at Yusuf with wide, searching eyes.</p><p>Yusuf knows those who do not love him look into Nicolò’s eyes and find him cold. Wanting. But that is not what Yusuf sees. He never has.</p><p>And so, with the last gasp of freedom they’ve been afforded, Yusuf surges forward, out of reach of the hands seeking to do him harm, and crushes his lips to Nicolò’s.</p><p>In a different world, a kinder one, Yusuf would have the time to make this right, with his mouth unbloodied and his hands unbound, free to offer Nicolò all that Yusuf has never been able to say with words. To offer Nicolò the whole of his heart.</p><p>But that is not their world. This is.</p><p>Nicolò surrenders to the kiss immediately, his mouth opening hungrily against Yusuf’s. Nicolò kisses with a desperation, a greed Yusuf had not known to expect. In the single moment they’ve been given, the first kiss turns into a second, a third, as Nicolò’s lips part against his, working their mouths together, taking all he can get (Yusuf will give him everything he has), as if Nicolò has lived through every decade, every harm only for this moment, and oh, how Yusuf longs to touch him, to hold Nicolò’s face in his hands, so devastatingly dear to him, and—</p><p>Hands come down on Yusuf’s shoulders with bruising force, and he is wrenched away from Nicolò.</p><p>Nicolò’s eyes are wild as they’re thrown apart. Tears shine on his cheeks, his mouth soft and kiss-bitten red. Yusuf does not look away from him, cannot look away.</p><p>“I will find you,” he promises, using whatever strength remains in his body to resist the men attempting to drag him back, to stay with his Nicolò. “I will not lose you,” he says, fierce in his conviction. “I will come for you, Nicolò. I will find you. I—”</p><p>Retribution comes then, swift and merciless. From behind Nicolò, two men step forward and beat the pommels of their swords against the back of Nicolò’s head. He drops to the ground like a stone—consciousness, if not his very life, immediately abandoning his body. Yusuf can only watch in horror as one of the men begins to drive the heel of his boot down against Nicolò’s head, again and again, crushing his face into the ground—</p><p>Another man comes to stand in front of Yusuf, blocking his view of the assault. It is perhaps the first act of mercy any of their captors have shown them.</p><p>On his knees, held against his will, Yusuf simply stares up at the man, unblinking and unapologetic. The man holds his stare as he slowly draws his blade from its scabbard—a trivial and altogether ineffective attempt at intimidation.</p><p>It is a longsword the man carries, immediately recognizable to Yusuf by its two-handed grip. In battle, he knows Nicolò’s longsword to cut through the air like a song, the blade as powerful and beautiful as the man who wields it, its melody long familiar to Yusuf.</p><p>This man’s weapon, inferior in every way, sounds but a single discordant note as it is raised above Yusuf's shoulders, and in three brutal, halting fells, removes his head from his neck.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Lost</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Sorry for the delay, but, you know, [gestures to the world at large]</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When he wakes, everything around him is black. For a moment, there is no sensation, no recognition, no weight of reality. Seemingly, no life at all. It is as if Yusuf is suspended in a great, dark nothingness.</p><p><em>Perhaps this is death, </em>Yusuf thinks distantly, <em>come for me at last.</em></p><p>He takes a breath, and it is like hot iron in his throat, branding him, burning deep inside his chest. There is no air, only water filling his lungs.</p><p>He is drowning.</p><p>Life slams back into Yusuf’s body entirely, like a horse at full gallop. Panic follows soon thereafter.</p><p>Completely disoriented, Yusuf can only thrash through the water, searching desperately for ground, for the surface, for any sense of direction. The water stings when he opens his eyes. He strains to find a source of light through the murk, seeking any indication of where he should swim. But there is only blackness.</p><p>Already Yusuf can feel the life draining from his body once more, faster and faster with every pounding beat of his heart, every moment another breath is stolen from him. How many times has he drowned that he cannot yet remember? Is this what he will be forced to endure, countless deaths lost to an infinite black expanse of water? Is this where he will remain, until his gift of endless life finally sees fit to abandon him? Trapped in a living death, unable to free himself from—</p><p><em>There.</em> Pain ricochets up Yusuf’s ankle where his foot has caught against a large rock; Yusuf fights against the water until he is perpendicular to its stone face. Then, planting his feet against the surface of the rock, using the last bit of energy his body has to offer, Yusuf propels himself upwards, with only a prayer that he has found the proper direction—</p><p>The water is indiscernible from the black of night when Yusuf’s head breaches the surface. Air immediately floods back into his body in a dizzying rush. Yusuf’s vision tunnels with the force of it, with the relief of a life stolen back from the brink of death. Over the roaring in his ears, Yusuf can hear the wheezing, gulping sounds of every breath he swallows greedily down his throat.</p><p>Coughing, gagging on the water as it is expelled from his lungs, Yusuf is able to stay afloat through base, animal instinct alone. His arms tread weakly through the water to keep his head above the surface, his feet scrabbling for purchase against the slippery rock bed below, all thoughts robbed from his mind by death, by water, by the cold.</p><p>It is a river he has awoken in. Deep at its center, but growing shallower as Yusuf moves closer and closer to its edge. The current is not strong where he has surfaced, and eventually Yusuf is able to beach himself along the flat, pebbled bank of the river.</p><p>Numb with chill, weak and run ragged with cough, Yusuf collapses against stones blooming green with algae. Each panting breath he takes is a battle against the weight of his soaking clothes pinning him to the ground, the water still seeping from his burning lungs.</p><p>Yusuf cannot open his eyes, so he does not know how long lies there, curled and shivering on the riverbank.</p><p>Whether he retains consciousness, Yusuf also cannot say. But slowly, with every lungful of air he takes in, the memories, the sensations from the past day begin to return.</p><p>His mouth, Yusuf notices, tastes like bile and...blood. Unignorably so.</p><p>A thought occurs to him then. With trembling fingers, Yusuf reaches up to feel along his collarbone, his neck, his jaw. Everything seems to have grown whole again.</p><p>Distantly, though not without amusement, Yusuf finds himself looking forward to recounting the experience of decapitation with Nicolò. A new, gruesome entry in this shared, morbid game they play.</p><p>And that is when Yusuf realizes. <em>Nicolò.</em></p><p>Yusuf’s eyes snap open. In the same instant he is back on his feet, his still-healing body be damned. Blood rushes through Yusuf’s veins. The babble of the river, the accompanying noise of a night alive with sound falls away until all he can hear is his own panic, pulsing in his ears.</p><p>Barely able to stand, Yusuf stumbles blindly along the riverbank, his eyes tearing in every direction, searching desperately through the depth of the night for any feature he might recognize. He barely stops himself from calling out into the dark, only the fear of discovery, of ambush preventing him from begging, screaming Nicolò’s name.</p><p>Yusuf’s mind races. He remembers everything now. Their capture. The journey up the mountain, blinded and bound. Nicolò being torn from Yusuf’s side. Nicolò’s screams. Nicolò’s lips against Yusuf’s mouth. Nicolò’s face bloodied and beaten into the ground.</p><p>A sword swinging above Yusuf’s head.</p><p>Yet, what Yusuf cannot seem to recall from the past day, in neither sight nor sound, is a river.</p><p>How far did their captors go to dispose of his body? How far has he been taken from Nicolò?</p><p>He refuses to wait until morning to discover how much distance has been put between them. The crescent of a waning moon provides just enough light for Yusuf to follow the river upstream—the only logical route he could have followed to wake up here in its shallows. The river weaves and climbs and throws obstacles in Yusuf’s path—fierce rapids and falls, felled trees, steep inclines requiring him to stray far from the riverbank and back again. And still, Yusuf does not slow his pace.</p><p>Daylight breaks. Afternoon follows. The river forks. Yusuf chooses the western channel, follows its tributaries up the mountain; despairs when he finds only headwaters. Turns back. Retraces his steps. Follows the eastern channel.</p><p>Night.</p><p>Day.</p><p>A week. There are endless veins and vessels of the river to trace, an entire labyrinthine expanse of water running down the unforgiving landscape of the mountain. And at every turn, across every scrap of land he scours, Yusuf encounters no sign of their captors, no sign of any human life at all.</p><p>Dread hollows him until Yusuf feels he has been emptied entirely.</p><p>The river narrows as the mountain begins to steepen. Yusuf does not stop searching, does not give up hope. He will find where they were last together.</p><p>There are no landmarks for him to recognize, no memories of his first climb up the mountain but those of the hemp sack over his head and his panting breaths. Yusuf can only follow the feel of the land, trusting his feet to find the path their captors had led them on.</p><p>The moon waxes, returns to its third quarter. Then, one day, there is fog. Then, trees—skeletal, coniferous trees appearing out of the mist like haunting specters, their bare branches reaching out to Yusuf like guiding hands, like answered prayers.</p><p>After relentless days and detours, Yusuf finally abandons the river in favor of the silent, craggy stones, the punishing incline of the mountain. He finds his way.</p><p>He finds the twin pools of blood; two dry, browned shadows against the same sharp stones Yusuf and Nicolò had been thrown down upon. Where Yusuf had his life taken, where Nicolò had been beaten, lost.</p><p>There is nothing more. There is no encampment of men as Yusuf might have envisioned. He finds no hoof prints to follow, no boot prints, not a single indication of where the men might have turned from here. Where they would have taken Nicolò.</p><p>Yusuf stands in the last place he saw Nicolò alive, with only the mountain peak above him, snowcapped and unreachable. He stares down the mountainside where the river runs and the foothills taper away, where the rest of the world sprawls out endlessly into the distance. And Yusuf begins to realize.</p><p>He falls to his knees. For the first time in over a fortnight, since waking alone at the bottom of the river, Yusuf starts to weep.</p><p>Because Nicolò is gone, and Yusuf does not know where to find him.</p><p>Nicolò is gone.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Interlude</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The world is larger than Yusuf ever could have imagined. It did not seem so vast, before. So cruel.</p><p>It mocks him, for even with an infinite lifetime to spend, to while away like currency, as if gifted to him for this singular purpose, it becomes clear to Yusuf that to find one man in the entire world is an impossible task.</p><p> </p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p> </p><p>Time passes slowly, but it does not stop. Without Nicolò, the years simply…vanish.</p><p>It is an intolerable loss, one Yusuf is able to bear only with the knowledge that as he lives, somewhere in the vast world, so too does Nicolò. And so Yusuf prays, with all of the love endlessly enduring in his heart, that Nicolò’s life is a happy one, and that should luck or destiny or divine providence bless them both a second time, they might meet again.</p><p> </p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p> </p><p>He has spent more decades alone than he ever had with Nicolò at his side when Yusuf finally stops tallying the years.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Sorry :(</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Found</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Welcome back - thanks for sticking with me. You may have noticed an additional chapter has been added to this work. I will unfortunately be occupied with trying to pass law school over these next few weeks, but I left you all in a pretty nasty place with the last update, and I feel bad about that. So what was once one chapter will now be two.</p><p>Please enjoy the first half of this well deserved happy ending, as promised &lt;3</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The sky is gray and veiled, a seamless expanse of low-lying clouds lingering with the promise of rain, soon to arrive. There is a chill in the air, a damp wind from the north that has Yusuf huddling further out of its reach. Peering from beneath the fringed canopy of his tent, Yusuf grimaces up at the sky, frowning imperiously at the gathered clouds that have driven every customer from the street market for the day, in fear of a sudden downpour.</p><p>No rain has fallen, and still Yusuf is only a handful of coins richer than he was when the day began.</p><p>Yusuf sighs wearily, the dreary weather and the dull atmosphere of the market steadily leaching away his good temper. Many of the other vendors have already abandoned their hopes for a profitable day, the market stalls lining the streets emptying as rapidly as the streets themselves. Apart from a few neighbors going about their daily business, a group of young boys kicking a ball about near the alley, the streets have largely been abandoned.</p><p><em>There is no use in furthering this torture,</em> Yusuf tells himself. With no patrons milling about to purchase his wares, he decides his time would be much better spent inside the house, dispensing his efforts for a future, more lucrative market day.</p><p>It is decided, then.</p><p>Yusuf sets about removing everything from the tables, carefully dismantling the intricate displays he’d crafted in his boredom. He wraps each earthenware dish in a protective layer of cheesecloth, gathering all the flat, decorative plates and shallow dipping bowls together into neat, bundled stacks and placing them in their respective baskets. The dishes are no longer so brittle after glost-firing, but Yusuf still treats each one with the prudence of a man who has handled too many bisques without the required care.</p><p>Before meeting Magdalena, Yusuf had always been content with his chalks and charcoals and pages of parchment, never straying too far from his favored medium. Over the last half decade, however, Yusuf has come to relish the art, the challenge of crafting with clay.</p><p>When Magdalena first took him on, it was only for the use of his steady hand, his promised ability with an artist’s brush. He was hired solely to paint designs on the plates and cups Magdalena crafted on her spinning wheel. Yet Yusuf soon found himself fascinated by the entire process; how the liquid glaze seeped into baked earthenware and disappeared between one breath and the next, the way its colors changed when the painted vessels emerged from the fires of the kiln.</p><p>Yusuf’s curiosity for a potter’s work was a deep, rich well, and Magdalena, a very percipient young woman, invested in that interest. She taught Yusuf how to apply ceramic glaze in solid coats, keeping him up to his elbows in glaze, dipping pots and bowls into the cool, pigmented slurries, dabbing away the dry marks his fingertips left behind with a brush. She instructed him on the porosity of clay; the way certain metals interacted to turn a deep red glaze into a glassy blue surface on a finished work; how the careful application of liquid wax would retain the beautiful, natural red of the clay or keep the bottom of a dish sturdy, free from the slippery finish of glaze.</p><p>He learned how to roll out long coils of clay and mold them into a freestanding vessel, pinching and smoothing the lines of earth until he had something new and beautiful before him. How with only his two hands and a splash of water, Yusuf could transform a shapeless mound of clay into any object his mind could conjure.</p><p>And when he’d all but mastered the methods of hand building, Magdalena had offered him her robe, dirty and crusted with dried clay, and sat him behind her potter’s wheel. With patience and grace, Magdalena taught Yusuf how to set the wheel in motion, to pump the pedal with his foot and keep the spin consistent. She instructed him on the proper way to settle his elbows into his hips, to keep himself steady against the force of the spinning clay. She guided his hands, showed him how he could use his palms to stretch clay out into thin, flat surfaces; how with his two thumbs, he could draw clay up into a wide-mouthed drinking cup or a narrow, elegant vase.</p><p>As though Yusuf himself were a body of clay to be molded, Magdalena transformed him from a dedicated apprentice into a craftsman in his own right. By sharing her talent and her time, in allowing Yusuf to partner in the crafting and selling of their wares, Magdalena provided Yusuf with a new appreciation for art, for the unseen medium of the earth; for the value of his hands, free from the grip of a sword.</p><p>And so, with a steady inflow of coin finally available to him, Yusuf had been able to craft a stable living for himself, a first since he died on the battlefield so long ago. Now, he has a rented room that serves his purposes well enough, a valued friend to share his meals with. A life, altogether ordinary.</p><p>At least, until it becomes obvious that time does not change Yusuf the same way it does Magdalena and the other townsfolk.</p><p>As he picks up two vases towering hip-high by their mouths, Yusuf reminds himself that his life as a solitary wanderer will never have any true end. That time has long since passed him by.</p><p>The oversized vases are heavy in each hand, straining against his wrists as Yusuf hobbles the short path from the tent to the home he and Magdalena share. Ducking through the doorway and into the shade of the house, he gently sets the vessels around the corner into the studio, out of the way of foot traffic. At the far end of the house, he can see Magdalena in the kitchen, preparing a late afternoon meal.</p><p>“Done so soon?” she calls out to him, not looking up from her work.</p><p>Yusuf waves a hand vaguely in the direction of the door he just came through. “Rain,” is all he offers in explanation.</p><p>Magdalena nods. “Let me know if you need any help carrying everything in,” she says.</p><p>They take turns overseeing their tent at the weekly market, allowing each other the opportunity to work alone in the studio without the threat of bumping elbows, or to simply enjoy the peace of the house unoccupied. Yusuf sees no reason to deprive Magdalena of that today. It will only be several more trips with the filled baskets for everything to be brought safely indoors—the dry skies will likely outlast until then.</p><p>He has the last two baskets heavy in his arms, overladen and stacked atop one another, when Yusuf hears a familiar voice call out his name from behind.</p><p>“Yusuf?”</p><p>Yusuf’s shoulders immediately sink, his eyes slipping shut in resignation. And he was so close to being done for the day too. Why did every customer seem to have the natural inclination to be present only when he least wanted them to be?</p><p>One foot already inside the door, Yusuf tilts his head upwards in a silent prayer for patience. Then, affecting a cheerfulness he doesn’t feel, Yusuf calls over his shoulder, “Yes, one moment, please.”</p><p>Turning the corner into the studio, Yusuf carefully lowers each of the baskets to the ground, lining them up along the wall with the rest of the unsold items. Straightening his spine, Yusuf takes in a deep breath, gathering his strength in anticipation of a long, meandering conversation with old man Gervasio from down the road, or another unwanted discussion about his continued unwillingness to court Isaque’s youngest daughter.</p><p>He ducks back outside. Yusuf takes one step out from the shadow of the house, into the fading gray light of the day, and he sees who has come to stand on the other side of his door. And Yusuf goes utterly still.</p><p>His heart instantly vanishes from inside his chest, growing wings and taking flight. Whether it begins to beat again, Yusuf cannot say; he does not feel it restart. He is breathless, entirely numb. He nearly falls to his knees upon his doorstep. It is as if the entire earth has shifted under his feet, leveling the world and rebuilding itself anew in a single moment.</p><p>His hair is longer, an unkempt approximation of the latest fashion, and his beard is shorter, but his eyes...his eyes are the same. Thousands of years could pass, and he would remain as familiar to Yusuf as his own reflection in a mirror. The sun could drown in the sky, casting the world into an endless night, and Yusuf would still recognize him, even in the dark.</p><p>On an exhaled breath, Yusuf stutters out his name. “Nicolò?”</p><p>He sees Nicolò’s chest heave, drawing in a sharp, stunned breath at the sound of his own name.</p><p>Yusuf refuses to blink, fearful that even a second of inattention will cause the vision before him to vanish. Yet somehow, without his notice, Nicolò moves closer, and then he is only an arm’s length away. Within reach.</p><p>Yusuf does not feel his feet move, but somehow, between one moment and the next, he has stepped forward to meet him.</p><p>The edges of the world begin to waver around him, colors gleaming and gathering in Yusuf’s vision, shimmering with unseen light.</p><p>He has tears in his eyes, Yusuf realizes. He is crying.</p><p>As if from a great distance, from somewhere far outside his body, Yusuf sees his hands come up; watches his trembling palms reach out to hold each side of Nicolò’s face. They hover there, disbelieving. But Yusuf does not touch him, cannot bring himself to touch him.</p><p>Nicolò’s eyes are as gray as the clouded sky, glistening with tears of his own. His soft voice breaks when he says, “Yusuf?”</p><p>He finds the courage Yusuf cannot, reaching forward to set the flat of his palm against Yusuf’s cheek. He traces once down the shape of Yusuf’s beard, his thumb gentle where he strokes at the soft skin of his cheek.</p><p>And Yusuf...Yusuf is lost.</p><p>He feels like he is underwater again, fighting against the dense weight of the river, of the entire ocean, every motion slow and deliberate. He feels like he is moving outside of time itself as he takes one last step forward and folds his arms across Nicolò’s shoulders, around the back of his neck; as Yusuf carefully, faithfully, <em>finally</em> draws Nicolò into his arms once more.</p><p>It is the first time they have touched in over a century.</p><p>Nicolò slots immediately into his embrace, his choked-off sob muffled where his mouth presses against the worn linen of Yusuf’s shirt, his nose buried in the curve of Yusuf’s shoulder. Yusuf feels it when Nicolò’s arms curl around his ribcage and loop under his own arms, his hands reaching up to grasp at Yusuf’s back. His fingers twist into Yusuf’s shirt, keeping his arms locked around him, gripping him tight then releasing him just as soon. Nicolò’s hands are implacable—touching, feeling him everywhere, like he can’t decide where to let his hands come to rest, like he’s desperate to hold all of Yusuf at once. He runs his palms up and down the length of Yusuf’s spine, again and again. He clutches at the top of Yusuf’s shoulders. Wraps his fingers around Yusuf’s bicep where it rests against the side of his own neck, a wordless plea for Yusuf not to let go.</p><p>As if Yusuf ever could.</p><p>Nicolò’s grip is tender and fierce, his chest shuddering against Yusuf’s as they cling to each other, helplessly, boundlessly. Yusuf can feel his own tears, hot and wet against the fabric of Nicolò’s shirt; feels Nicolò reach up to cradle the back of his head, comforting him, tucking his face achingly closer into Nicolò’s neck, holding him as they both weep.</p><p>There is a single crack of thunder, a warning ignored. Then, at long last, the dark, roiling sky above their heads breaks open up and begins to pour down upon them—a long-held breath, released.</p><p>Yusuf gasps as the icy rain spills against his skin, down his neck, soaking his clothes in an instant. Yet the warmth of his and Nicolò’s embrace is impenetrable. The very hand of God could part the clouds and reach down from the heavens, and not even He could separate Yusuf from Nicolò in this moment, Yusuf thinks.</p><p>He has been reoriented, returned to his rightful place in the world, where Yusuf was always supposed to stay, where he was destined to belong—right here, with Nicolò, in his arms.</p><p>It is inconceivable to imagine the time he has spent apart from Nicolò, bereft of his warmth, his constancy, his unwavering friendship. His love. The hurt he has suffered is immeasurable, having gone so long without Nicolò at his side, without the light of Nicolò’s eyes as they indulge in the secret of their life, endlessly shared. The joy of their lives, spent together.</p><p>Suddenly, Yusuf cannot bear to be without it, any of it, not for a moment longer. Even now as he holds everything he has sought for so long in his arms, guarded and dear.</p><p>Yusuf follows his hands up the curve of Nicolò’s shoulders, his neck, until he is holding Nicolò’s face in both of his palms. He lifts Nicolò’s head from where it rests between his shoulder and chest, separating their bodies just far enough to touch his forehead to Nicolò’s, to meet his eyes.</p><p>Nicolò's gaze is shining green as he stares back at him, unblinking, his eyes raw and open with every emotion spilling from his heart. Yusuf brushes the wet hair back from Nicolò’s face, tucking it carefully over his ears, smoothing his fingers over the beautiful angles of Nicolò’s face, so impossibly lovely to him.</p><p>“I missed you,” Yusuf says, smiling even as the salt of his tears mixes with the rainwater on his cheeks. “I have missed you so much, Nicolò. My Nicolò.”</p><p>Nicolò chokes out a watery, reverent laugh, his smile tremulous and brilliant as he cups Yusuf’s face in return, both of them grinning and crying and refusing to let go of each other for even an instant. Then Nicolò’s arms are back around Yusuf, holding him close, swaying them together as the rain beats a noisy rhythm against the roofs surrounding them, turning the dirt road into a stream beneath their feet.</p><p>It has been lifetimes since Yusuf last spoke in Nicolò’s tongue, yet he can understand every word Nicolò now murmurs against the skin of his neck; beautiful words, affirmations, Nicolò’s affections pouring from his lips until it is only one phrase he repeats, over and over again, until he’s breathless:</p><p>
  <em>“I found you, I found you, I found you.”</em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you so much for reading! More to come &lt;3</p><p><a href="https://mooodlighting.tumblr.com/post/632456304426942464/asunder-it-is-in-that-abiding-conviction-in">fic post</a> | <a href="https://mooodlighting.tumblr.com">my writing blog</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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